Optimum Anabolics - Day 42/Week 6 By The Numbers

Week 6 has come to a close. Measurements follow a few progress photos...































































MEASUREMENTS:

Weight: 179.0 LBS (NO CHANGE for week, DOWN 0.5 LBS total)
BF: 8.1% (according to the calipers I have) (NO change)
Neck: 15-1/2" (NO change)
Chest: 39" (NO change for week, DOWN 1/2" total)
Shoulders: 46-3/4" (DOWN 1/2" for the week, DOWN 3/4" total)
Biceps: 13-1/2" (EVEN for week, NO change total)
Waist: 33-1/4" (EVEN for week, UP 1/2" total)
Thighs: 19-3/4" (UP 1/4" for week, NO CHANGE total)
Calves: 15" (UP 1/4" for week, NO CHANGE total)
Adonis Effect: 1.421 (DOWN 0.015 for the week, UP 0.001 total)

WORKOUT - CARDIO (HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING)

My lungs and breathing were good today so I tried to crank out the flying Romans a little faster. I got a set of 30 (15 per leg) in about 40 seconds. That's down from 45 so I'll take it!

Before hopping on the bike, I walked at a good pace for 5 minutes or so.

Here are today's intervals:

• Bike, Intensity 1 (warm up), 5:20
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (160 jumps)
• Jog, Intensity 2, 4:40 ±
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 40 seconds (15 each leg)
  
• Jog, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Bike, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (about 160 jumps)
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 40 seconds (15 each leg)
  
• Jog/Walk (cool down), Intensity 1, 5:30 (jogged 4:00, walked 1:30)
  

Total Time => 30:50

Comments:

Abs tight today.

Left heel was better today while working out. It's hard to explain, but the feeling has changed. There's still discomfort but it's almost as if the site has begun to itch. Weird. This says to me, though, that progress is being made in the pain-free direction.

Calves and feet got stretched for 2 minutes per side today.

DIET - HIGH PROTEIN

For breakfast I had the last remaining quarter of this recipe leftover from last week. Along with the crustless quiche, I also had two pieces of grilled eggplant (see photo below), a fresh Roma tomato, and half of a green and half of a red bell pepper sauteed with a quarter red onion in coconut oil.















Mid-morning snack was the usual yogurt, ground flax seed, and whey protein isolate powder.

At lunch time, I got creative...no, no I didn't. A green pepper stuffed with tuna salad along with a zucchini salad was the meal of choice today.

Mid-afternoon, I polished off a hard boiled whole egg and another egg white and the raw nut mix of cashews, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and almonds.

Leftover meatloaf served as dinner along with a bunch of veggies including green beans with onions and mushrooms, fresh organic broccoli from the farmer's market, and a mix of steamed carrots, green beans, and corn. Holy nutrition.

Later in the evening, 2 oz. of organic, raw milk cheddar cheese went down the hatch for a snack.

Back to the weights tomorrow!

Optimum Anabolics - Day 41/Mosquit-Oh! No!

This morning was a bit rough.

The pooch began barking a little after 4:00 a.m. as if the house had been surrounded by outlaws. I figured there was no point in going back to bed for just a few minutes so I headed downstairs, drove off the villains, and got ready for my workout.

I stepped out the back door and noticed a vehicle with all kinds of flashing lights making a loud noise as it worked it's way around the condo complex behind us. I figured it was one of their maintenance vehicles and didn't think too much more about it as I headed around the front to get cranking on some cardio intervals.

About 30 seconds into my first bike interval, I heard the noise (now louder) and saw the lights heading toward me in our neighborhood. I wanted no part of that so I did a quick u-turn and headed the other way, still not knowing what the heck it was.

After doing my jumping jacks, I headed out on my running interval. Roughly half way through, I turned the corner and BAM! There it was again! It was hunting me down! :)

You're dieing to know what it was, right? It was a City maintenance truck fogging the area for mosquitoes. Yep. I ran through a cloud of insecticide. COUGH! COUGH! Perfect timing, too...lungs and heart working nice and hard to get oxygen to my cells for performance during my intervals. Ahh...force that poison nice and deep into my tissues. And for what? Read on...

Once at my computer, I hopped on the net and pulled up the City's website. Turns out they're spraying predominantly to control the West Nile virus. That's still around?? With another click, a map came up showing the number of reported cases in the state last year. Wanna venture a guess? 15. In the *entire* state. That's not a typo.

How many thousands of people are being exposed to toxic chemicals in an attempt to reduce the risk of 15 people getting this illness? This, to me, seems ridiculous and totally unnecessary. It was just a few years ago that residents were having to petition the City just to get our streets plowed. But yet, they have no problem spending our tax dollars to poison us.

I may not live a toxin free life as of yet, but my wife and I are getting there. As a consumer, I get to choose whether I buy a toxic product or not. That's my biggest complaint here, I did not get to choose whether or not my part of the City got gassed.

Rant for the day is now over. :)

WORKOUT - CARDIO (HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING)

My lungs and breathing were quite good today again so I jogged and rode the bike even faster today than yesterday.

I should mention that I've been walking at a good pace for 5 minutes or so prior to hopping on the bike for the first interval.

Here are today's intervals:

• Bike, Intensity 1 (warm up), 6:15 (went over the scheduled 5:00 to avoid insecticide. BAH!)
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (160 jumps)
• Jog, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 45 seconds (15 each leg)
  
• Jog, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Bike, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (about 170 jumps)
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 45 seconds (15 each leg)
  
• Jog/Walk (cool down), Intensity 1, 5:45 (jogged 3:40, walked 1:45)
  

Total Time => 31:30

Comments:

Abs STILL feeling those reverse ball crunches!

Left heel was good today while I was working out. I wasn't really favoring it at all this morning. It was sore off and on later in the day, however...not exactly happy about that.

Calves and feet got stretched for 2 minutes per side today rather than the usual 1 minute per side.

DIET - HIGH PROTEIN

For breakfast I had another quarter of this recipe leftover from last week. Along with the crustless quiche, I also had two pieces of grilled eggplant (see photo below), a fresh Roma tomato, half of a green and half of a red bell pepper, and 2 stalks of celery. Hey, that was a nice nutritious breakfast, huh?

In an attempt to suck out some of the poison gas I inhaled this morning, I took some Sonne No. 7. Check it out here for the scoop on this natural remedy.

Everything all together...

Mid-morning, I had a snack of raw nuts that included almonds, cashews, walnuts and Brazils. No need for anything more than that today since I had plans to meet a friend for lunch.

I met my buddy at Easy Street Cafe for a Greek lunch. This place never disappoints. I had the Greek salad with a perfect amount of gyro meat. The salad itself had iceberg (blah) and romaine lettuces, fresh tomatoes, pepperoncinis, red onion and several kalmata olives. The homemade Greek dressing was top shelf and totally makes the salad.

I traded snack places today and had my yogurt, ground flax seeds, and whey protein isolate powder around 3:30 today instead of the usual mid-morning time.

Leftovers were on the menu for dinner so I threw together a chicken fajita-style meal of grilled chicken (from the farmer's market), cut up red peppers and tomatoes, and homemade guacamole.

Dinner (blurry but still good!)...

Optimum Anabolics - Day 27/The Memories

Last night, Christina helped me go through some boxes of stuff that had been cluttering up our basement for the last several years. Most of the boxes were full of college text books, class notes, work books, and other academic paraphernalia. It's basically all worthless now but it did start a flood of memories for me.

The memory flood continued as I got notice from a high school buddy that he had posted our basketball team photo on Facebook. That site is seriously dangerous! (~:

As I did my workout this morning (see below), I couldn't help remember the senior high school days of lacing them up after school for basketball practice and running what seemed like endless drills and sprints. I was in great shape then and couldn't help but think to myself how good those workouts really were.

I don't need to be in that kind of "performance" shape anymore by working out for 2 to 3 hours per day (thankfully). However, it made me think that working out in that style could accomplish quite a bit even in a short period of time. For those folks who have little time to workout, this could be a good thing.

Maybe I should put together a "Hoops" workout plan. Things that make you go "hmmmm...."

WORKOUT - CARDIO (HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING)

My lungs and breathing were good today despite not doing any true cardio in the past 7 days.

Jumping rope was helping to aggravate my calf and feet muscles so I switched to jumping jacks today. Perhaps it's the side-to-side rather than straight up-and-down movement, but these old-fashioned gems didn't seem to be a problem.

Sprinting, on the other hand, was seemingly creating some serious structural issues (meaning it caused injury!) for my lower legs. I tried these bad boys out today...plyometric flying Romans. Wow!

Here is today's intervals:

• Bike, Intensity 1 (warm up), 5:00
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (about 150 jumps)
• Jog, Intensity 2, 5:45 ±
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 45 seconds? (10 each leg)
  
• Jog, Intensity 2, 5:00 ±
  
• Bike, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (about 150 jumps)
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 45 seconds? (10 each leg)
  
• Jog/Walk (cool down), Intensity 1, 5:40 (jogged 4:00, walked 1:54)
  

Total Time => 30:54

Comments:

Shoulders and back feeling a little tight today.

Core feeling tight and strong.

Good timing on the intervals this week.

DIET - HIGH PROTEIN

Breakfast was a beast of an omelet consisting of one egg, two egg whites, leftover grilled chicken (about 2 oz), green and red peppers, red onions and raw milk cheddar cheese. I topped it with a few shakes of the Louisiana hot sauce, too, of course.

Mid-morning snack was a 1/2 cup of yogurt, 4 tsp of ground flax seeds, and 1/3 scoop plain whey protein isolate powder.

We had a lunch meeting today at the office. This created a similar situation to the birthday party on Day 25. Should I eat the pizza provided as a lunch meal? Did I? No. I opted instead for this salad from Chipotle...















Chipotle's salad's are actually fairly healthy "as is" in my opinion. I added a few items from home just to put some icing on the cake (haha). The peppers, cucumbers, carrots and salsa were added on. No dressing necessary! In fact, I told the clerk at the restaurant to leave the container on the shelf. A much better choice than factory pizza. No?

Mid-afternoon snack was 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and the raw nut mix of almonds, walnuts, cashews, and Brazil nuts.

For dinner, I used the leftover apple-soy salmon from the other night for fish tacos in a turnip green "tortilla". On the side, I sauteed up some fresh green beans and mushrooms in coconut oil and Bragg's liquid aminos.















Can you see how vibrantly green those veggies are?! I pretty much licked the plate clean!

Pre-bed snack was a 1/2 scoop of whey protein isolate powder mixed up with a little water. Yawn. (`: